"I want to be very plain with you, Councilman," said Donahue, turning to Lucky once more. "I have almost a thousand men here at Jupiter Nine, and they're tough, all of them. They have to be. They're far from home. They do a hard job. They run great risks. They have their own outlook on life now and it's a rough one. For instance, they haze newcomers and not with a light hand, either. Sometimes newcomers can't stand it and go home. Sometimes they're hurt. If they come through, everything's fine."
Lucky said, "Is this officially permitted?"
"No. But it is permitted unofficially. The men have to be kept happy somehow, and we can't afford to alienate them by interfering with their horseplay. Good men are hard to replace out here. Not many people are willing to come to the moons of Jupiter, you know. Then, too, the initiation is helpful in weeding out the misfits. Those that don't pass would probably fail hi other respects eventually. That is why I made mention of your friend."
The commander raised his hands hurriedly. "Now make no mistake. I agree that he is big on the inside and capable and anything else you want. But will he be a match for what lies ahead? Will you, Councilman?"
"You mean the hazing?"
"It will be rough, Councilman," said Donahue. "The men know you are coming. News gets around somehow."
"Yes, I know," murmured Lucky.
The commander scowled. "In any case, they know you are to investigate them and they will feel no kindness toward you. They are in an ugly mood and they will hurt you, Councilman Starr. I am asking you not to land on Jupiter Nine for the project's sake, for my men's sake, and for your own. There you have it as plainly as I can put it."
Bigman stared at the change that came over Lucky. His usual look of calm good nature was gone. His dark brown eyes turned hard, and the straight lines of his lean and handsome face were set in something that Bigman rarely saw there: bitter anger. Every muscle of Lucky's tall body seemed tense.
Lucky said ringingly, "Commander Donahue, I am a member of the Council of Science. I am responsible only to the head of the Council and to the President of the Solar Federation of Worlds. I outrank you and you will be bound by my decisions and orders.
"I consider the warning you have just given me to be evidence of your own incompetence. Don't say anything, please; hear me out. You are obviously not in control of your men and not fit to command men. Now hear this: I will land on Jupiter Nine and I will conduct my investigations. I will handle your men if you cannot."
He paused while the other gasped and vainly attempted to find his voice. He rapped out, "Do you understand, Commander?"
Commander Donahue, his face congested almost beyond recognition, managed to grind out, "I will take this up with the Council of Science. No arrogant young whipsnap can talk like that to me, councilman or no councilman. I will match my record as a leader of men against that of anyone in the service. Furthermore, my warning to you will be on record also and if you are hurt on Jupiter Nine, I will run the risk of court-martial gladly. I will do nothing for you. In fact, I hope-I hope they teach you manners, you…"
He was past speech once more. He turned on his heel, toward the open lock, connected still with the space tube to bis own ship. He clambered in, missing a hand hold in his anger and stumbling badly,
Bigman watched with awe as the commander's heels disappeared down the tube. The other's anger had been so intense a thing that the little Martian had seemed to feel it in his own mind as though waves of heat were rolling in upon him.
Bigman said, "Wow, that cobber was really going! You had him rocking."
Lucky nodded. "He was angry. No doubt about it."
Bigman said, "Listen, maybe he's the spy. He'd know the most. He'd have the best chance."
"He'd also be the most thoroughly investigated, so your theory is doubtful. But at least he's helped us out in a little experiment, so when I see him next I will have to apologize."
"Apologize?" Bigman was horrified. It was his firm view that apologies were strictly something that other people had to do. "Why?"
"Come, Bigman, do you suppose I really meant those things I said?"
"You weren't angry?"
"Not really."
"It was an act?"
"You could call it that. I wanted to make him angry, really angry, and 1 succeeded. I could tell that firsthand."
"Firsthand?"
"Couldn't you? Couldn't you feel the anger just pouring out of him all over you?"
"Sands of Mars! The V-frog!"
"Of course. It received the commander's anger and rebroadcast it on to us. I had to know if one V-frog could do it. We tested it back on Earth, but until I tried it under actual field conditions, I wasn't sure. Now I am."
"It broadcast fine."
"I know. So at least it proves we have a weapon, one weapon, after all."
3. The Agrav Corridor
"Good deal," said Bigman fiercely. "Then we're on our way."
"Hold it," said Lucky at once. "Hold everything, my friend. This is a non-specific weapon. We'll sense strong emotion but we may never sense one that will give us the key to the mystery. It's like having eyes. We may see, but we may not see the right thing, not ever."
"You will," said Bigman confidently.
Dropping down toward Jupiter Nine reminded Bigman very strongly of similar maneuvers in the asteroid belt. As Lucky had explained on the voyage outward, most astronomers considered Jupiter Nine to have been a true asteroid to begin with; a rather large one that had been captured by Jupiter's tremendous gravity field many millions of years previously.
In fact, Jupiter had captured so many asteroids that here, fifteen million miles from the giant planet, there was a kind of miniature asteroid belt belonging to Jupiter alone. The four largest of these asteroid satellites, each from forty to a hundred miles in diameter, were Jupiter Twelve, Eleven, Eight, and Nine. In addition there were at least a hundred additional satellites of more than a mile in diameter, unnumbered and unregarded. Their orbits had been plotted only in the last ten years when Jupiter Nine was first put to use as an anti-gravity research center, and the necessity of traveling to and from it had made the population of surrounding space important.
The approaching satellite swallowed the sky and became a rough world of peaks and rocky channels, un-softened by any touch of air in the billions of years of its history. Bigman, still thoughtful, said, "Lucky, why in Space do they call this Jupiter Nine, anyway? It isn't the ninth one out from Jupiter according to the Atlas. Jupiter Twelve is a lot closer."
Lucky smiled. "The trouble with you, Bigman, is that you're spoiled. Just because you were born on Mars, you think mankind has been cutting through space ever since creation. Look boy, it's only a matter of a thousand years since mankind invented the first spaceship."
"I know that," said Bigman indignantly. "I'm not ignorant. I've had schooling. Don't go shoving your big brain all over the place."
Lucky's smile expanded, and he rapped Bigman's skull with two knuckles. "Anybody home?"
Bigman's fist whipped toward Lucky's abdomen, but Lucky caught it in midair and held the little fellow motionless.
"If s as simple as this, Bigman. Before space travel was invented, men were restricted to Earth and all they knew about Jupiter was what they could see in a telescope. The satellites are numbered in the order they were discovered, see?"